In Spanish (and translated to English by his very able priest interpreter, Pope Francis told married couples to remember their husband or wife when they were still their boyfriend or girlfriend. He said “If we think about husband and wife, dream about good qualities that they have.. Don’t ever lose the illusion of when you were boyfriend and girlfriend.” Very inspiring right? I was so inspired that I made my first every photo quote, haha! Feel free to share it :)

Most couples are excited when wedding planning. They try to prepare everything, at 100% perfection. What they usually fail to prepare for is what comes after the wedding. In this blog, I have said time and again that the wedding is just the very tip of the forever iceberg. Marriage, which comes after the wedding, is what couples should prepare for. After the honeymoon and newly-married glow fades comes the hard reality of being husband and wife. Are you ready for that?

And if you ever grow disenchanted with your spouse years down the road, you should remember what Pope Francis said on January 16, 2015:think of your spouse's GOOD qualities AND remember the SWEET LOVE you shared when you were still courting. Even better: try to recreate your dates before the disenchantment sets in. And always, always pray for your spouse. Prevention is definitely better than cure! ;-) Thank you Pope Francis for this wonderful nugget of marriage wisdom. WE LOVE YOU!

Hi everyone! :) I actually have a different blog post planned for today (#DongYanWedding!! Yes, I'm an obsessed fan, hihi!) but as Labsie headed out to work, he handed me a paper full of scribbles. He said he had to do an introduction about himself at work yesterday, and can I please kindly read it. So I read it and by the end, I was totally in love with him all over again! :) And falling in love with your spouse again is just as intense as the first time -- so yeah, #kiligmuch. Haha!

No, what he gave me wasn't a love letter; nor was there mushy stuff about me in his introduction. I wasn't even mentioned, not even once! But he mentioned "other girls", LOL! A little background: hubby started out as an engineering student but ended up as a Language and Literature major. He knows a lot of classic stories, corrects my grammar, the whole shebang. I read his works maybe twice or thrice (he never really shares what he writes; shy artist problem?) and I never really realized that he is quite a witty writer. In fact, I thought we had the same lighthearted writing style! Such a fun fact to discover on our sixth year of marriage! ;-)

And so, without much further ado, here's what he wrote (don't worry, I asked his permission to post this here and I think he was a bit flattered, hihi) --

The universe is full of impossible possibilities, and I am one of those. My parents did not expect to have me; I am a hundred percent sure they wished for a cute, placid poster boy. Instead they were given an energetic, loud-mouthed, poop factory. At least that was what I was told.I was born on the Halloween of '81, when people were more fearful of the Marcoses than vampires, ghosts, and all things supernatural. I grew up wishing I was like Astroboy who always gets fixed at the end, after getting blown in numerous ways. It would be amazing if I can climb the highest tree or go swamp fishing without fear of losing a limb or getting malaria.I went to high school thinking that it was going to be a blast because now my friends and I can outrun those third graders that we always play tag with; them unwillingly. Instead I had to deal with pimples, peer pressure and Math.I graduated high school without having the tiniest idea of what course I should pursue in college. I finally chose BS ECE because my friends took it. I'm pretty sure all of us were clueless at that time and nobody read the fine print that "E" stand for Engineering. Which means Math, a good bunch of it, and the ratio of boys to girls there is 10:1. It was definitely not a good way of meeting girls in college.Some of my classmates became successful engineers, while most of us shifted to other courses. However, we all became successful ALAKtricians and GINgineers.So here I am working in the IT industry even though I didn't finish an IT course. It's even more amazing that I found out I had a passion for numbers, and computers, and everything technical because never had I thought of having it in me. I thought I would be a musician or a painter, but as I have said: the universe is full of possible impossibilities!

Wasn't that a hilarious write-up?! Haha! Though Labsie's writing wit / humor is tad drier compared to mine (which is complete with exclamation points and emojis, LOL). It's so much fun to discover new facets of your spouse when you've know each other for so long. We've been together since 1999 and only now I have discovered this talent of his. Love, love! :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!To start the year with a bang, here's a list of the 2015 lucky wedding dates according to the Chinese Lunar calendar! :) Make sure you know your Chinese animal zodiac sign coz if the auspicious wedding date is against your sign (bride / groom), it will still NOT be a good date to start your marriage. By the way, 2015 is the Year of the Green Wooden Ram / Sheep / Goat. It will start on February 19, 2016 so technically, January to February 18 dates listed below are still in the 2015 if you follow the Lunar calendar. Are you ready to go wedding date picking now? Here ya go!

So, did you find your lucky wedding date? I hope it fell on the same day as your couple anniversary, or on a special day for both of you! :) As for our wedding day, I don't even know if it fell on an auspicious date, lol! We got it coz it was the only available date that our chosen Davao hotel for wedding reception is open. Haha! On a good note, Labsie and I still together, happy as ever so I guess our wedding date was lucky enough! ;-)

Hi friends! :) Before anything else, I wanna thank you all for coming over to our wedding blog when I announced it's revival. To my Google+ family and FB friends, thank you so much for the support! To our new readers, do stay as we have content-rich posts coming up. I hope our wee blog can help you plan your future weddings, whether it's in Davao City or somewhere else ;-) And now, onto the main message of this post:

From our family to yours, Merry Christmas! And have a fantastic, Happy New Year as well! :) If this photo looks familiar to you, it's because it's my FB cover photo. I DID NOT DESIGN this (wish I know how!), it is a freebie template that I downloaded from one of the many digital scrapbooking websites I visited circa 2006-2013. Hihi! If you're the owner of this template, thank you! Kindly comment and I'll direct my readers to your blog.

As for our photos above, the family one is from early this year, in our Singapore family vacay. It was our first out of the country vacay since 2010! And that's because of tight budget. Two kids + middle class income = no extra money for leisure and recreation ;-) So if you're getting married soon, make sure your financial life is a-OK. Because having kids (they come after marriage right? haha) will mess it up! LOL! As for the other photo, that's from Christmas 2013. The girls are 3+ and 1+, both sooo adorable!

Once again, a lovely Christmas to all of you!Happy holidays and see you on 2015!

Good day brides and grooms! Below is our current directory of Davao City resorts for wedding reception :) Resorts in IGACOS / Samal is not included as it's not part of Davao City anymore. Anyway, I personally checked the websites of the resorts below and it all works so best to visit it first before calling the resorts. We will continue to update this Davao wedding directory as new inland / mountain / ocean resorts pop up here in our beautiful city where you can hold your wedding reception. If you know of a resort that is not in this list, kindly comment or contact us so we can include it. Thank you! And if you're looking for the directory of Davao City hotels for wedding reception, go click!

One of the highest points of Davao City, overlooking Davao Gulf and Samal.

The new blog's name? Davao Homeschooling Family :) I created it last November, and more than 5 posts later, it still doesn't have a header photo. Haha! It's because I'm still torn between using a stylized blog name (done in calligraphy preferably) or our family's photo. This blog is what actually jumpstarted my blogging mojo and led me to assess my old blogs, of whether they are worth reviving or not :) Obviously, this wedding blog made the cut so yay for that!

MADAYAW from Davao Homeschooling Family! :)

And yes, as you can surmise from the blog name, I write about homeschooling my kids there. But the blog is actually so much more! I'll be writing about my experiences in cooking, as a wife, our Davao life, and on and on :) The DHF blog (family life) is actually a continuation of my personal blog (single life) and this wedding blog (married life). Interested to delve deeper on how DHF came about? Read the blog's first post! Yes, that's the screenshot of it above.

I guess that's about it! If you followed this wedding blog of ours to plan your Davao weddingand now you're expecting a baby, read about Attachment Parenting, babywearing, breastfeeding, cloth diapering, and co-sleeping. It might lead to the best decisions you'll ever make in raising your baby and saving a lot of money! ;-) And if you have a big baby, toddler or kid already, follow Davao Homeschooling Family. You might fall in love with homeschooling and realize it's the best education path for you and your kids!